Issue 9: Heritage of Freedom: Dissenters, Reformers, & Pioneers Heritage of Freedom: Introduction 'All change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should' still be living in caves/ Professor Taylor's judgment summarizes the theme of this book, which is an illustrated guide to radical movements in Christian history. The twenty-one chapters cover a remarkable range of movements. What connects Francis and his friars with William Booth and his Salvation Army? Is there any conceivable link between the exuberance of today's Pentecostals and the sober austerity of the desert monks seventeen centuries before them? The thread that holds them together is that they have all acted as 'ginger groups' within the Christian church. Each movement has had something fresh and important to say, which the established church has not been fully open to hear. But in the end each distinctive message has penetrated the fabric of worldwide Christianity and made a lasting impact on the world. Why have these movements put their stamp on the church and society, so that we remember them, while others never really broke through? This book suggests several possible answers. And a deeper knowledge of these and other movements (which space excluded) would refine those answers. But the crux is people. Each movement has thrown up key personalities, who shaped its development. There is plenty in this book about people such as Martin Luther, John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer - all rugged nonconformists who have permanently changed the way we see things. But thousands of ordinary people threw in their lot with these groups, and this book is about them too. What was it like to be a follower of John Hus in fifteenth-century Bohemia, for example? What gave these people such joy in their beliefs and such courage in face of persecution? Where did they find the freedom to live as their consciences led them? They would answer that it all came ultimately from believing in Jesus of Nazareth. In the words of the Shaker hymn: It's a gift to be simple, It's a gift to be free. Heritage of Freedom is a celebration of that gift, in many of the different ways it has been received and experienced through the centuries. Copyright 1986 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
Issue 9: Heritage of Freedom: Dissenters, Reformers, & Pioneers Into the desert: the first monks Some people think that Christian monasticism began in the sixth century with Benedict of Nursia and his Rule of Life. But in fact it goes back far beyond that, to a time before there were monasteries, even before the 'desert fathers' of the third century. Monasticism, as a recognizable and named phenomenon in the church, has no official beginning, no official foundings. It emerged, in several places at once, as a spontaneous development from the various forms of the ascetic life: the tradition of strong self-discipline which had taken shape in the church from the very beginning. The most striking features of monasticism, the renunciation of marriage and the renunciation of wealth, go back to the New Testament. The apostle Paul recommended celibacy, in his first letter to the Corinthians, on the grounds that 'the unmarried man worries about the things of the Lord and how to please the Lord, but the married man worries about the things of the world and how to please his wife, so he is torn in two'. And this is a theme which is developed in subsequent literature, Fallen mankind is at odds with himself; one of the blessings of redemption is an inner reconciliation, and, for that matter, a reconciliation between body and soul. Redeemed people can become 'single' again. This is almost certainly one of the original meanings of the word 'monk': a monk is a 'single', undivided man, and a 'single', solitary man. A romantic notion developed too, that since we are married to the Lord, there is no room for any other kind of marriage. In particular, if as Paul says the body is the Lord's, it would be wrong to enter into carnal union with anyone else. Another important strand in early Christian asceticism strand in early Christian asceticism probably goes back to the instructions which Jesus gave to the preachers he sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God, taking no provisions for their journey as they went. By the end of the first century, at least some people seem to have been taking these instructions as covering a whole lifetime of services as apostles. We hear of apostles touring around preaching the gospel, actually forbidden to stay in the same place for more than two days at a time. Their lifestyle would obviously exclude the possibility of any normal home life. Many of the early Christians expected that Jesus Christ would return to earth in their lifetime, and this provided another reason of opting out of the ordinary practices of human society. Paul had to rebuke some of the Thessalonians for refusing to work on the grounds that they were waiting for the end. But he himself said that, because the end is near, we should either abstain from marriage or, if married, be as if we were not married. Ready for battle There was also, from time to time, the threat of martyrdom. Many people, realized that, if it came to the crunch, a radical choice would have to be made between enjoying prosperity in this world and being faithful to Jesus Christ. So being detached from the good things of the world-even renouncing them completely-was seen as a sensible preparation for martyrdom, should the need arise. As the threat of martyrdom receded, ascetic renunciation came to be seen as a kind of substitute for martyrdom. Some people even went so far as to commit suicide as a kind of bid for do-it-yourself martyrdom'. On a more down-to-earth level, some people were without the comfort of marriage through no choice of their own. From very early on the windows in the church seem to have been recognized as a class of their own, and before long they were joined by virgins who gave up their right to be married, and by celibate men too. In some places, they seem to have become a semi-official body of full-time church workers.
Practices such as these began in a straightforward way, called for by circumstances. But not surprisingly they developed a more ideological interpretation, which in turn led to new practices. One probably very early idea was that the church is engaged in a Holy War between the forces of God and the forces of Satan, and that therefore the rules for the Holy War apply, which are laid down in Deut. 20 (the newly married are excused military service). The Lord's crack troops must be caught out like that, but must be people who are unafraid and free from the distraction of family and property, so that they can go bravely into battle. The theme of battle against demons is all pervasive in Egyptian monasticism. Another idea which became prevalent in monasticism for centuries was that of weeping. In the Syriac language, weeping is actually a technical term for monks. This probably grew out of a Jewish practice of undertaking a life of austerity as a token of grief for the fall of the Holy City. Some Christians extended this and saw the ascetic life as a life of sorrow for the sins of the world. This could easily be narrowed down into a life of sorrow for one's own personal sins. The habit of wandering, presumably begun at first as an apostolic necessity, acquired a new value as a sign of the belief that Christians are pilgrims and sojourners on the earth. And it could be given a sharper edge by the belief that the structures of this world, not least its financial structures, are largely controlled by the devil. So we find some ascetics rejecting civilization entirely. This seems to have combined in some circles with the belief that Jesus restores us to the conditions of the first paradise, and so some ascetics, for example, practiced nudism (like-adam) and ate only food that was naturally available, rejecting both agriculture and cooking. Some of the resulting practices were bizarre if not dangerous. And the rejection of the world could easily lead towards a dualistic belief-the material world as such is evil-and away from the orthodox belief, that God created a fundamentally good world. But in principle the ascetics were after something of real value. They sought a way of escaping from the domination of worldly society and the ways in which society defines what it means to be human, so that God's original plan for mankind could be rediscovered. By the third and fourth centuries, at least some ascetics had become important focal points for a vision of humanity and even of society quite independent of conventional social, political and economic factors. Some monks in fact acquired considerable power precisely because of their position outside society. Not m, political and economic factors. Some monks in fact acquired considerable power precisely because of their position outside society. Not merely were they credited with supernatural powers (which they usually exercised in the interests of the poor, the sick and victims of injustice) but their radical independence enabled them to intervene with great authority even in public affairs of church and state. The holy man became an institution to be reckoned with. Desert fathers Publicity, however, carries its own dangers. The pioneers of the monasticism which became the classic model for ever after, the monasticism of the Egyptian desert, seem increasingly to have moved away from the ideal of the public, wonder-working, powerful holy man. Instead they stressed humility. The wonderworking monk surrounded by his devotees came now to be seen as a typical example of vanity. And the plea of usefulness to others came to be regarded with suspicion. When I was young, one monk said, I said to myself that I would do good. But now that I am old, I perceive that I have not on single good deed in me. The desert fathers' also rejected the ideal of wandering, and adopted the practice of simple manual work, designed to occupy the monk's time and to earn his living. Instead of the entirely uncircumscribed life of (alleged) continual prayer, they recommended a balanced life of prayer and work, with a market emphasis on stability within the cell.
The most famous of the desert fathers is Anthony the Great, often, rather exaggeratedly, called the founding father of monasticism. He retired to the desert in about 285; inspired, according to his biographer, Athanasius, by the texts 'If you would be perfect, go, sell all you have and come follow me', and Take on thought for the morrow. The very schematic account which Athanasisus gave shows how Anthony withdrew progressively further into the desert, and how he disentangled himself from evil. This evil confronted him first of all in the form of the temptation of irrelevant good works, then in the form of lust, then in the form of terrifying demonic emanations which did considerable damage to his body, and finally, helplessly, in the form of grotesque apparitions which could not harm him and which he mocked with hymns and psalms. After a long time on his own he eventually emerged again, and became a teacher. People were amazed to see that he was in perfect health of body and soul. He exhorted his disciples not to be afraid of demons, and not to imagine that virtue is difficult and alien. In the wake of Anthony, a large number of men and some women too adopted the life of hermits in the desert. Most of them lived in settlements, with churches and priests, and they visited each other for advice and discussion, but in formal and un-programmed ways. Further south, Pachomius (who died in 346) developed a rather different kind of monasticism, organized in monastic communities, which in time produced fixed monastic rules and government. But in both forms of monasticism the major concern was with the ascetic struggle against the vices, a struggle carried on chiefly on the basis of continual self-awareness. Pay attention to yourself, was a favorite slogan. By staying in their cells, resisting all distracting thoughts and refusing all religious or spiritual pretentiousness, they hoped to become aware of exactly what was going on (discernment) so that they could escape from the insidious wiles of the demons and from all that is contrary to the true God-given functioning of human life. Their austerities, exaggerated though some of them may seem to the modern reader, were never meant to be an end in themselves; they were meant to provide the conditions within which the monk could discover by experience what a real, redeemed human being is like. In particular their poverty and unprotectedness were meant to make them totally dependent on God. The most disastrous mistake, in their view was to attempt to set up some kind of identity for themselves, some kind of life for themselves apart from God's gift. Although the desert fathers, at least the more articulate of them, whose words survive, showed a considerable expertise in psychology and were refreshingly down to earth (If you see someone going to heaven by his own self-will grab his leg and pull him down again) they still essentially left the onus of responsibility on the individual monk. But not everyone is capable of taking this responsibility. We find in later generation of monks much more tendency to regard it as essential for the young monk to have spiritual father, whom he will obey and whose teaching he will follow in everything. And this process led to a blurring of the distinction between cenobites (monks living in community) and the hermits. In the Greek church it became normal for a monk to begin in a monastic community and then move on to being a hermit. Towards a rule of life The Egyptian father's insistence on humility and self-knowledge meant that they played down social responsibility;-it is no good ruining your own house in order to build someone else's. In Palestine, Jerome (died 420) distinguished between monks and others on just this basis:- There are two ways of winning a fight. Monastic life is a deliberate running away from the risks of a more involved life. Even missionary activity is shunned: It is a monk's business to weep, not to teach. Not everyone accepted this. Basil of Caesarea (died 379) reformed monasticism in some parts of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and turned it into something much more like present-day religious communities
devoted to good works. And others followed suit. But this was the exception rather than the norm. In the churches of the Western Mediterranean, there were several independent developments. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) formed his cathedral clergy into a monastic community, an example taken up later in the Canons Regular. And in Gaul there was a monastic movement, associated chiefly with Martin of Tours (died 397), which was closer to the public holy man rejected in Egypt. But fairly quickly the Egyptian model was introduced, especially by John Cassian (died 435), leading to a more secluded form of monasticism. Cassian's influence made for a monasticism more hidebound by its traditions. He was less prepared to trust individuals, whether as learners or as teachers, preferring a more impersonal tradition, expressed in conventional practices and doctrines. The process of tidying up went much further with the anonymous author of The Rule of the Master in the early sixth century. His aim was to take away all initiative from his monks and to make as many decisions as possible at the outset once and for all. The monks were supervised the whole day long. It was clearly assumed that any independence allowed to them would simply be abused. This brings us to the time of the greatly influential Benedict of Nursia. He largely followed the Master, though with a rather less suspicious attitude. He did not snoop on his monks the whole time, but was clearly concerned to regulate their life fairly thoroughly, giving them a balanced diet of prayer, manual labour and readings. His Rule is famous for its equilibrium, but, as he himself recognized, it did not make for the higher adventures of the Christian life. It was a rule for beginners, as he said, and he presumably expected people to progress beyond it as hermits, though this never in fact became normal in Benedictine circles. The organized monasteries of the West played an important role. They were oases of Christian civilization in a world relapsing into barbarism. And they provided an opportunity for people to escape from the temptations and distractions of life in the world to concentrate on serving God. Yet undoubtedly something had been lost. The earlier monastic adventure of self-discovery, renouncing all security for the sake of the gospel had faded into the background. In its place came something more mundane: an accepted monastic definition of life, with considerable material and spiritual security. Copyright 1986 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
Issue 9: Heritage of Freedom: Dissenters, Reformers, & Pioneers Enthusiasm in Asia: the New Prophecy Montanus was a second-century convert to the Christian faith in ancient Phrygia (now part of central Turkey). He may previously have been a priest of the popular pagan goddess, Cybele, who was worshipped in wild excitement and raving frenzy. In about AD 170, Montanus became the leader of a movement known as the 'New Prophecy'. (It was actually opponents who called the group 'the Phrygians', and later 'the Montanisis'.) He was joined by two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla. Montanus was inspired by the belief that he was living in the age of the Holy Spirit. Christians should not look back nostalgically to the age of the apostles, but allow the Spirit to lead them in the present. Montanus normally referred to the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete (the title Jesus used in John's Gospel). He was strongly influenced by Jesus' promises about the future work of the Paraclete, and sometimes claimed to be the direct mouthpiece of the Spirit, speaking in the first person, rather like the Old Testament prophets: 'I am the Father and the Son and the Paraclete'; 'I am neither angel nor envoy, but I, the Lord God, the Father, it is I who have come.' But the Montanist prophets were attacked not for what they said, but for how they said it. They prophesied, it was claimed, in a manner unheard of among Christian prophets. They were 'filled with spiritual excitement and fell into a kind of trance and unnatural ecstasy'. This probably did not mean speaking in tongues, but rather prophesying in a state of intense excitement. The burden of Montanus's message was that the end of the world was near. Maximilla predicted: 'After me there will be no more prophecy, but the End.' In order to prepare for the coming crisis, Montanus gathered his followers in the Phrygian villages of Pepuza and Tymion. They called these communities 'Jerusalem', probably because they hoped to recreate the Spirit-filled life of the first community of Christians. The lifestyle of the Monlanists was regulated according to strict standards: they were to fast often, eat only dry food and abstain from sexual intercourse, even within marriage. At the same time Montanus himself ran a well-organized scheme - far ahead of its time- for paying preachers from the gifts of Christians. Montanus was a colorful and forceful personality, and his teaching won wide support. The New Prophecy spread ~ especially lo Rome and North Africa, where, in Carthage, [he famous theologian Tertullian became its most distinguished representative. In his view, the Paraclete summoned Christians to a much stricter way of life than before. He urged Christians never to try lo escape from persecution and death. Martyrdom was very important for the Montanisls. They believed the Paraclete told Christians to hope for a death 'not in bed but in martyrdom, so that he who suffered for you may be glorified'. A group of Christians died as martyrs at Carthage in Tertullian's time. The report of their experiences is a very moving document. It records their visions in prison and their sufferings in the amphitheatre, and presents such happenings as the promised work of the Spirit, and a sign that they were living in 'the last days': 'The more recent events should be considered the greater, being later than those of old, and this is a consequence of the extraordinary graces promised for the last stage of lime. These new manifestations of power bear witness lo one and the same Spirit who is still at work.' These words express the most important aspect of the-new Prophecy, and strongly suggest that these martyrs were
Montanists. Terlullian wrote about a woman who was blessed with 'various gifts of revelations' and received visions and secret communications by the Spirit during the church's services of worship. She reported ihesc afterwards, when they were all examined with the greatest care. (Women played an important role in Monlanism.) But the movement was not charismatic in the modern sense. There is no mention of Spiritbaptism and no emphasis on speaking in tongues. Montanism was soon outlawed by the mainstream church of the day. At a time when the church was settling down and developing stable patierns of leadership and order, the popularity of the prophets and their teachings were seen as threatening the growing authority of the bishops. The New Prophecy's messages appeared to be given greater importance than the writings of the apostles. Moreover, the movement was marked by extremism and fanaticism, and its intense religious excitement aroused suspicion. Yet the condemnation of the Montanists was damaging, because no one else in the early church had such a vivid sense of the contemporary work of the Holy Spirit. Their excommunication left the church more orderly but less dynamic. Copyright 1986 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
Issue 9: Heritage of Freedom: Dissenters, Reformers, & Pioneers The Celtic Way: From Patrick to Cuthbert James Atkinson The claim is widely made, in school textbooks and elsewhere, that Augustine brought Christianity to British shores in 597. The truth is that Augustine's Roman mission came to the court of a Christian queen, and was met by British bishops with several centuries of recorded Christian history behind them. It was important to the British Reformers of the sixteenth century that the Church of England constituted a true part of the catholic and apostolic church, now reformed on the basis of the New Testament. The fact that Rome excommunicated the Anglicans did not mean that the British Church was no church, nor its gospel less than the gospel. There had been in existence in Britain a true church centuries before Rome stepped on these shores a church marked by three distinctive qualities: missionary and evangelistic zeal, high scholarship, and great simplicity of life. What is the Celtic Church? The phrase The Celtic Church means that church which existed in the British Isles before the mission of Augustine from Rome in 596-97. Its precise historical beginnings cannot now be dated, but it was certainly founded by the end of the second and the beginning of the third century. What are the facts? Disregarding as legendary all the delightful Irish, Welsh and British legends (of the Seventy who came to Britain, of the visit of Joseph of Arimathea and his companions, of Bran the Blessed and such tales), the first hard historical fact is the statement oforigen, the Alexandrian church father. He exultingly declared in 201 that 'places in Britain not yet reached by Romans were subjected to Christ'. Gildas, the first British historian (c500 - c570) records the death of St Alban during the Diocletian persecution (305), as does the Venerable Bede. Most historians accept this as a reliable historical statement. The first great council of the church was the Council of Aries (314) called to take counsel in the troublous times which followed the 'Donatist' schism in North Africa. The records of the Council show that three British bishops were present: the Bishop of York, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Lincoln, together with a priest and a deacon. There must have existed already in 314 not only a church, but a working and effective organization of the British Church to be able to organizea commission of five to travel from the north of England to the south of France to discuss a threatening schism which had originated in Africa. Again, a Council was called at Ariminum (now Rimini) in 359 to continue the work of the Nicene Council in stating belief in the Trinity. Three British bishops attended. We further know that of all the bishops of Western Christendom who attended that Council these were the only three to avail themselves of the Emperor's offer to pay travelling expenses. No doubt this was because the British Church was poor. In 363 we find Athanasius reckoning the British as those loyal to the Catholic Faith. Chrysoslom (c347-407), the great preacher and church father of Constantinople, and Jerome (c342-420), that unsurpassed scholar and translator of the Bible, give further testimony to the soundness of the faith in Britain. Clearly we have already in the fourth century an organized church in Britain, with its own bishops,
supporting the catholic Nicene position and this almost three centuries before the Roman missionaries set foot in Britain. There is further archaeological evidence: a Celtic church, of uncertain date, has been unearthed in the old Roman town of Silchester. It was a church of the same type as other fourth century churches in Italy, Africa and Syria. Clearly the old Romano-British Church was predominantly Celtic, and when the Roman legions withdrew in 410, the British Church remained. The Celtic saints During these years Christendom was strengthened by a number of great Church Fathers, biblical scholars, historians and systematic theologians. Clement, Origen and Cyril in the East; Chrysostom in Constantinople; Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine in Africa; Irenaeus in Europe; Jerome worldwide. These men have left behind them an imperishable body of writings, preserved through controversies, wars and persecution. The British and Celtic saints, on the other hand, were distinguished as missionaries and scholars, above all by a rigorous simplicity of life of a Franciscan quality, even though more harsh and severe themselves. They have left behind them deeds rather than books, for it was to spreading the kingdom and bringing life to the church that they dedicated themselves. First, there was Ninian (c360-c432). The son of a converted chieftain of Cumbria, he went to Rome as a young man, where he was instructed in the faith and consecrated bishop. He returned home to work for the conversion of his own people. On his return journey he was much inspired by Martin of Tours, and when he founded a church at Wigtown, he built it of stone, not wood, and dedicated it to Martin. This church, the Candida Casa (White House), as it was called, was the base from which Ninian and his monks worked to convert the Scots and the English. It continued for centuries as a seat of learning for the Welsh and Irish missionaries, and had enduring influence on Celtic monasticism. During these years of Ninian's great missions there arose a British monk named Pelagius who was later active in Rome from about 383 to 410. History has classed him as a heretic, but his views occasioned a flood of fine literature from Augustine and others, and in any account of Celtic Christianity he must find a place. Pelagius was typical of the British Church at that time: rigorously moral, highly scholarly and, if not a missionary, certainly a man with a message. To put it perhaps too simply, he taught that mankind was virtually the author of his own salvation. What troubled Pelagius was the shocking morality of the limes, as the ancient Roman Empire was crumbling to ruins. He himself had a high moral integrity and believed that men and women were free, or at least had the potential, to do what was right, and were under no necessity to sin. Mankind needed only the good example of Jesus Christ to see the good and to follow it. Pelagius understood grace as the revelation of God, given in the Law and in Christ, and this work of God was meant to assist and facilitate humanity to see the good and to do it. He preached and taught his views and expounded the Bible to support them. He travelled to Africa to face the great Augustine of Hippo, and to Palestine to justify his views. He received considerable support throughout Christendom. Eventually, Augustine answered him by arguing that we are by nature in bondage to our own sin. He held a high doctrine of the free and unmerited grace and mercy of God without which mankind is lost. Jerome, with his usual abusive vulgarity, described Pelagius as 'that big fat dog of Albion', 'a great redfaced lump', 'a lout', 'too full of Scotch porridge' and the like, and took up his pen to condemn his theology. Pelagius was condemned at Ephesus in 431 and at Orange in 529. Pelagius shattered the reputation of the British Church for simple-hearted orthodoxy, and to this day the term Pelagianism (or Semi-Pelagianism) has been used throughout Christendom to represent the mancentred, moralistic approach of self-help rather than the God-centred reliance on grace. Two bishops came over from Gaul, Germanus and Lupus, 'to uphold in Britain the belief in divine grace', men who 'took pains to keep the Roman island Catholic'. There was a debate with the British at St Albans (429), about which a contemporary historian wrote, 'On one side was divine authority, on the other was human assurance'. The great Germanus is remembered as having won the debate, though he had to return
again in 447, and expel the Pelagians to the Continent where they might unlearn their misbelieve Men of Ireland. Men of Ireland Meanwhile, Palladius, a British monk, who had been responsible for the mission of Germanus to Britain, went to Ireland as a missioner. He seems to have met with little success and eventually left for Scotland. In 431, Patrick was sent to support him, and on the death of Germanus was consecrated bishop (432). A Briton, who as a boy had been taken into slavery in Ireland, he displayed mighty courage when he engineered an escape to France. There he studied deeply, and found his life's mission, namely to return to Ireland, to evangelize the land which had once so cruelly enslaved and wronged him. Patrick was the ideal man for Ireland. He had the courage to face his former slave-master, who is said to have committed suicide at the sight of the returned Patrick. He tackled the Druids; he tackled the Royal Family. He converted several members of the royally. Everywhere he established churches, founded religious communities, preached the gospel. By the year 444 he had founded the Cathedral Church of Armagh, which soon became the educational and administrative centre of the Irish Church. Patrick organized the scattered communities which Palladius had left in the north, did much to convert the pagan west and brought Ireland into closer relations with the Western Church. He encouraged the study of Latin, and did much to raise the standards of scholarship. He reflected to the highest degree the qualities which were to mark the Celtic Church: high learning, a fine artistic sense, warm-hearted enthusiasm, a disciplined asceticism, and a consuming sense of mission. The life which Patrick brought to the Irish Church lives on to this day. In the century after Patrick, Columba (c521-97), an Irish nobleman, was filled with remorse at causing a battle where many men were slain. He vowed, at the age of thirty-two, to win for Christ as many pagans as Christians whose death he had caused. Impelled by that invincible missionary zeal of the Celtic saint, he set off with twelve disciples for lona, off the south-west coast of Scotland, where he established a monastery. This was the base for his own work, but it also proved of enormous influence not only in Christianizing Scotland and Britain but also in evangelizing as far afield as Germany, France, Italy, even Africa. There he lived for his remaining thirty-four years, evangelizing the mainland and establishing monasteries in the neighbouring islands. He out-debated the Druids, and converted the kings of the Picts and of the Scots. He outgrew his fiery Irish temper to earn the lovely name of 'the Dove' for his gentleness, and became known everywhere for his love of nature and for his love of God and man. A month after his death Augustine landed in Kent. Columba is important to remember as a great life-bringer. He was passionate by nature, fierce in his hatred of the wrong, fierce in his love, fierce in his work and self-sacrifice for Jesus Christ. He could be vindictive, yet could burn with the tenderest love. He had compassion forthe erring, and also for dumb creation and for nature. He was a man of deep spiritual insight who cast the divine fire abroad on every side 'without troubling himself about the conflagration'. When overtures were made from Gaul to persuade the Celtic Church to adopt the Roman calendar for fixing Easter, Columba in a most learned reply begged to be excused attending any such synod in Gaul. He deprecated intolerance, and rather movingly asked for 'leave to dwell silently in these woods beside the bones of his seventeen departed brethren' and 'to pray that Gaul might find room for all of whatever race, who were on the road to the heavenly kingdom'. His tenacity could not be broken. A true Celt, he had no stomach for conferences and organization: he just wanted to get on with the task of preaching. Here we see in miniature the striking contrast between the Celtic and the Roman type of Christianity. Irish Christianity was ascetic and monastic. The Irish knew nothing of orderly diocesan bishops; the seat of authority in Ireland was the scholarly and disciplined monastery, ruled by its abbot. Bishops were under the abbot, though in ecclesiastical rank above him. The important thing was not the rank they
occupied but the work they did. It was from this Celtic monastery in lona that the leaders of the Northern Church in England were to come. It was by the Celtic missionaries from lona who settled at Lindisfarne, off Northumberland, that the greater part of England was won for Christ. A long line of devoted missionaries gave themselves to the conversion of England, and the next hundred years proved to be the finest century in the long history of the Church of England. Invasions, and a mission Before we examine that movement, we shall have to take note of the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain, beginning 449, but lasting for many centuries if we include the later invasions of the Vikings. These German tribes had hardly ever come in touch with Roman culture and civilization, nor even with Christianity. These Teutonic hordes came as invaders and carried on a war of extermination. The few remaining Celts were swept back into the mountain fastnesses. The Celts hated them and would have no dealings with them: they even refused them Christianity. The Anglo-Saxons continued their heathenism. It was a kind of nature-worship, with worship of the sun and moon. They believed in pixies, fairies and water-sprites, as well as in occult magic. It was later and indirectly, through its earlier saints, Patrick and Columba. that the great flood of missionaries from lona and Lindisfarne was to reclaim this lost ground and win over the larger part of England to faith in Christ. The other stream came from Rome in the person of Augustine, and though the Roman mission evangelized Essex only, in effect it came to dominate the British church owing to the powerful Romanizing tendency of Wilfrid and the authority of the Roman see. The pope made Augustine the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and, in effect, this meant the establishment of the Church of England. Plans for its organization were formulated at Rome and sent to Canterbury to be carried out. The Celtic saints had no interest in organization. The Church in Kent grew, and though Augustine wanted to come to terms with the British bishops, his proud and prelatical manner made the native bishops dislike and suspect him. He was much the inferior of the Celtic bishops, intellectually and spiritually. There were several differences between them, such as the calculating of Easter, the shape of the tonsure, the ritual in baptism trifling externals indeed. The great difference was that the British bishops refused to recognize any supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and therefore Augustine's claim to be their Archbishop. Though Augustine continued to work in Essex, this estranged state of affairs persisted until his death in 604. There followed an appalling pagan reaction owing to the death of two Christian kings At this time, the greatest king in England, Edwin of Northumbria, had married the princess of Kent, and one of the terms for such marriage with a pagan was that she should be allowed to bringa Christian chaplain with her. She brought Paulinus to York, now a bishop. Edwin was baptized on Easter Day, 627. The heathen king of Mercia (Penda), supported by Cadwallon of Wales, attacked Edwin. On the battlefield of Hatfield, near Sheffield, in 633, Edwin's army was overthrown and Edwin himself slain. Norlhumbria was devastated, and fora whole year Cadwallon and his men pillaged, burned and desecrated the whole land, massacring men, women and children. Paulinus fled back to Kent. Apostacy and paganism reigned everywhere. In a most exciting and dramatic turn of events, two surviving sons of the dead king, Oswald and Oswy, had fled north to lona, where they received new heart and new hope, and before 'the fateful year' of pillage was over, Oswald met and defeated Cadwallon at Heavenfield in 634. A cross marks the spot on those lonely wastes, west of Hexham. The men knelt down in prayer before the battle 'having undertaken a righteous war for the salvation of our race'. Oswald was now king of Northumbria, and in his desire to restore the Christian faith his mind naturally turned to lona, where the Celtic monks had befriended him, for the Roman Paulinus had fled the field. The first monk was a total failure, and when a monk called Aidan told the assembled monastery why the mission had been a failure, they resolved to
send Aidan. Of all the fiery and effective Celtic missionaries, this was the gentlest, the sweetest and the most Christ-like. Holiness and gentleness, simplicity and sympathy, radiated from his presence. He preached the word of life, and he lived by his own teaching. King and preacher in partnership Aidan at once showed a love of Celtic ways as distinct from Roman when he took over office. He did not establish himself in the capital, in the ancient seal of York. The Celts never put practical and administrative convenience first. He chose Lindisfarne, that Holy Island standing off the mists of the Northumbrian coast, an exact parallel to lona. No sacred spot in Britain compares with Holy Island. As one stands in those hallowed grounds among the silent ruins, one senses, as in lona, the holy atmosphere for thought and prayer which inspired these Celtic saints. To the south, just visible, stood the great castle of Hamburgh, the home of his king, protector and friend. On starting out as a bishop he neither sought nor received any sanction from Rome or Canterbury. He regarded himself as a Celtic missionary sent by his church at the request of the king. He never admitted the principle that a bishop's jurisdiction must be derived from Rome, or that a Pope had any right to appoint an English archbishop supreme over 'all the bishops of Britain'. Yet Rome acknowledged him as a canonized bishop. With Aidan began another mission to Britain. Lindisfarne was the cradle of northern Christianity, which meant from Edinburgh as far south as the Midlands. Here was the home of Aidan and of Cuthbert of Chad and his brother Cedd, and of Wilfrid. From here Aidan conducted his missionary journeys, a poor preacher on foot, often accompanied by King Oswald. The king supported him strongly, even helped to translate the ancient Scottish and Northumbrian speech, as well as to build of stone the minster at York and many other churches. Aidan founded a school at Lindisfarne from which the future leaders were to come. He bought slaves and trained them as future priests. On his journeys the preacher would meditate on Bible passages, or recite Psalms. He spoke to all he met: if a pagan, he would commend to them Christianity; if Christian, he would strengthen them in the faith and urge them to chastity and goodness of life. Severe on the sins and vices of the rich, he was full of charity to the poor. For seven long years, 635-642, the good King Oswald and saintly Aidan carried on a wonderful partnership, preaching the gospel, helping the poor, and founding schools. Final rout of paganism Disaster struck this mighty partnership of king and preacher. Penda, the pagan, who had fought Oswald's father at HatHeld (633), returned to the fight to attack Oswald. Oswald died on the field of Maserlield (Oswestry) in 642 and 'with the bones of holy men was Maserfield made white', wrote the ancient chronicler. Oswald's brother Oswy, took over Northumbria, and finally defeated and slew Penda at the battle of Winwaed, (near Leeds) in 655. He reigned, a powerful king of Northumbria until 671. With Penda fell paganism. But saintly Aidan had died in 651, and his evangelistic work was pursued by the brothers Chad and Ccdd. A young shepherd, Cuthbert by name, had a vision ofaidan's soul being carried to heaven, and leaving his sheep, immediately rode to the monastery of Melrose and craved admission. He was transferred to Ripon to help in a new foundation, but was expelled for his adherence to Celtic practices. He returned to Melrose where his physical strength and spiritual powers were such as to make him provost of the convent. After the Synod of Whitby it was he, though a Northumbrian given to the old Celtic ways, to whom was given the task, as Prior of Lindisfarne, of converting the monastery to the Roman usage. In 676 he adopted the simple and severe life of a hermit for eight years. He-refused the bishopric of Hcxham in 684, but allowed himself to be made Bishop of Lindisfarne the next year. His short, two-year episcopate was marked by great missionary zeal and energy, when he won all hearts by his unfailing
love, his c]uiel patience and his manifest self-denial. In all this he showed himself a true Celt. Just before his death he retired again to his hermit's cell, where he died in 687. It is an irony of history that this Northumbrian Celt should be given the task of Romanizing the old Celtic Church. The monks treasured the saint's body, and during the Viking invasions, carried it all the way to Durham, in whose Cathedral it still rests. With Cuthbert the epitaph of the Celtic Church may be written. The two separate streams, the Roman and the Celtic, were to meet and strive for the mastery. Oswy, Celtic to the heart, found it difficult when he was celebrating Easter to live with his Romanist queen still in the austerities of Holy Week. He wanted unity in his kingdom and called a synod to meet at Whitby in 664. The issue was not really about tonsures and dates of Easter but the leadership in Britain of lona or Rome. Wilfrid, though Northumbrian, had been to Rome and had returned more Roman than the Romans. The Celtic party was out-debated, when Wilfrid asked the rhetorical question. Why should the British stand out against the whole of Christendom? Had not Peter and his successors been given the keys of heaven? The king, Oswy, said that he would like to be on terms with the door-keeper when he came knocking at the door of eternity. The issue was settled for the wrong reasons. Slowly and sadly the Celtic party walked its weary way back to Lindisfarne, whence most of them walked further on to lona. They had asked but one thing: to be allowed to return home and end their days in the old ways. This they all did. It has been argued that the decision of Whit by gave unity to the English Church; that it brought England into the main stream of letters, arts and general culture, centred in Rome; and that it provided the church with a consistent order. The reader must judge that for what it is worth. The decision could equally be described as the first rivet of the Roman yoke which was to gall the necks of succeeding generations for nearly a thousand years. The golden tradition of those scholarly, saintly, poor missionaries winning souls for Christ by love, was now but a glorious memory. The Romanizers at Whitby could not foresee where their decision would eventually lead to the ultimate disaster of the Borgia popes and a secularized power-drunk papacy. It was to take a Martin Luther, and at great cost, to burn the papal bull and topple the triple tiara, and thereby show men again how right the Celtic saints were. They were a long and steady line of scholar saints who by their missionary zeal brought life to the people of God in Britain. No one wants to return to the thatched oak shack of Ninian on Lindisfarne. But the simplicity, the self-devotion, the prayerfulness, the burning love of Christ, the faith which shone forth in those old Celtic missionaries is still the only true spiritual equipment. We might well tread where the saints have trod. We could with profit return to their ways. Copyright 1986 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
Issue 9: Heritage of Freedom: Dissenters, Reformers, & Pioneers Return to simplicity: Francis, Dominic and the friars Few figures in the Western church have been so popular as Francis of Assisi (1181-1226); yet the real Francis, underneath the romances and legends, is probably almost as unknown as his contemporary, Dominic Guzman (cl 170-1221). For most people, Francis is the great nature-lover who preached to the birds and who tamed wolves, and the chivalrous champion of his 'Lady Poverty'. And if Dominic is thought of at all, it is perhaps most commonly as an Inquisitor. In fact Francis really was a lover of nature and of poverty, though the heart of his message lies elsewhere. But Dominic was definitely not an Inquisitor, as the office did not even exist until some ten years after his death. The truth about these two saints and the Orders they founded is both less glamorous and more important than the myths. Between them, they brought to the church something which was desperately needed in the early thirteenth century. Many people longed for a more straightforward, evangelical way of life. Francis and Dominic showed that it was possible to do justice to this widespread desire, while remaining within the unity of the church. As C. S. Lewis remarked. 'There was nothing which medieval people liked better, or did better, than sorting out and tidying up'. And one of the things which they had, seemingly, sorted out and tidied up by the early thirteenth century was religious life. From the ninth century onwards the monks had been tidied up under the Rule of St Benedict, from the eleventh century onwards the orders of clergy had been tidied up under the Rule of St Augustine, and ever more effective steps were being taken to ensure that everyone who wanted to be set apart for a religious life would fit into some recognizable legal slot. Individuals seeking a way of expressing their fervour independently of the official categories were generally treated as dangerous, if not heretical. In spite of Pope Innocent Ill's attempts to find a place in the church for new, more simple, religious movements, the Lateran council in 1215 decreed that no new religious foundations were to be made except on the basis of an existing Rule. Yet plainly something was lacking. A considerable number of people were disaffected with the official church, and had fallen an easy prey to separatist and 'heretical preachers. The generally low level of Christian education, even among the clergy, left people very vulnerable to strange doctrines. The longing for spiritual life, which held the potential for a great evangelical revival, looked like being wasted on the fringe of the church or outside the church entirely. With the powerful backing of successive popes, particularly Innocent III and Gregory IX, Francis and Dominic were able to establish within the church official Orders which could, in different ways, cater for the demand fora style of religious life less encumbered with monastic proprieties. The attractiveness of their Orders can be seen from such statistics as we have for their early growth. We hear of there being more than 5,000 Franciscans at a General Chapter within Francis' own lifetime, and in the middle of the century there were some 1,250 Franciscans in England alone. And in 1223 there were 120 Dominicans in Paris, only six years after the foundation of the community there, while in mid-century it has been calculated that there were about 13,000 Dominicans altogether, and 20,000 by the end of the century. Wandering preachers The novelty of these two Orders can be seen from the reaction of more traditionally-minded churchmen. Jacques de Vitry, who was not unsympathetic, remarks that the life of the Franciscans 'seems very dangerous to me, because not only mature men, but even young, immature men, who ought to be
constrained and tested for some time within the discipline of the convent, are sent out throughout the world in pairs'. And of Dominic we read: 'He used to travel round and send out his first brethren, even though he had only a few and they were indifferently educated and mostly young. Some religious of the Cistercian Order were amazed at this, and particularly at the confident way he sent such young friars out to preach. They set themselves to watch these young men, to see if they could find fault with anything they did or said.' For centuries monasticism had been seen as enshrining at least symbolically the perfection of the kingdom of heaven in the perfection of its structures and observances; the elaborate discipline of regular life was meant to be a protection against the frailty and blindness of individuals. The monastic enclosure separated its community from the temptations of the world. The regulated, constantly supervised, balanced, undistracted life of the cloister would, at least, keep people out of mischief, and provided a uniquely safe opportunity to grow into habits of goodness and piety. Recruits were carefully tested before being permitted to take their vow, and only mature men were allowed to adopt a more independent life, whether as hermits or as preachers. Francis' and Dominic's friars largely abandoned all these precautions. It was the boast of the Franciscans - a boast echoed in horror by Matthew Paris, the English Benedictine chronicler - that the whole world was their cloister. And, at least at first, both Orders accepted all recruits indiscriminately, without any time of probation. As soon as they arrived they were liable to be sent out into the world. The essential model for both Orders was Jesus wandering round with nowhere to lay his head, and the apostles sent out by him to travel round as bearers of the gospel, trusting to whatever hospitality they might find on the road. To some monks who wanted to persuade him to join their Order, a Dominican novice retorted: 'When I read that the Lord Jesus Christ was, not a white monk or a black monk, but a poor preacher, I want rather to follow in his footsteps than in those of anyone else.' The radical and uncompromising following of Jesus Christ was almost an obsession with Francis. The crucial discovery of his own vocation occurred one day in 1208 when, at Mass, he heard the Gospel from Matthew 10, where our Lord sends out his apostles without money or provisions to preach the kingdom. Francis exclaimed, 'That's what I want!', and immediately set himself to follow the gospel literally. He was presumably aware that many of those who pretended to take the gospel seriously ended up victims simply to their own whims, so, once he had begun to attract followers, he went to Rome on his own initiative to seek the pope's approval for his way of life, and he volunteered a promise of obedience to the pope. But, in spite of his complete loyalty to the institutional church, he resisted all attempts to make him adopt an existing Rule. He is quoted as saying, 'My brothers! God has called me by the way of simplicity and has shown me the way of simplicity. I do not want you to name any Rule to me, not that of Augustine or that of Bernard or that of Benedict. The Lord told me that he wanted me to be a new kind of fool in the world'. Instead of the security and respectability of the monks and clergy, Francis wanted to take the risk of simply following the gospel. His Rule was not meant to be anything other than the gospel, and he argued that any dilution of it would mean a diluting of the gospel. Before he died, he tried to oblige his followers to observe the Rule exactly as it stood, without commentaries or interpretations. In his own eyes, the Lord had spoken, and all that remained was to obey him. The literalism of Francis can be seen in his unwillingness to bind his friars to any kind of dietary laws, such as were customary in other Orders. They were to observe the fasts of the universal church, but otherwise they were to follow the gospel precept to eat whatever was set before them. He is also credited with a very literal understanding of the commandment to take no thought for the morrow: he would not even allow the cook to soak the vegetables overnight! But the following of Jesus had, for Francis, one essential focal point. '1, little brother Francis,' he wrote, 'want to follow the life and poverty of our most high Lord, Jesus Christ, and of his most holy mother, and